Tag: Smartphone

A few months ago I had a blog post about automatically toggling Android Location Mode on my smartphone between High Accuracy and Battery Saving when using certain apps. Using the super-app Tasker and a 3rd-party plugin called Secure Settings I was able to swap the Location Mode of my Nexus 5 between the two modes. However, this was a poor solution since closing an app would result in disabling GPS access, which was undesirable if navigation was currently active. Furthermore, closing an app and returning to it would result in deactivation regardless of the timing. Despite numerous suggestions in the comments, none of them provided a viable answer.

I recently upgraded to a Google Nexus 4 phone from my old HTC Inspire HD. Unfortunately, the original device that I received had some problems with the ear-piece, resulting in a very noticeable static hissing noise during calls and even when the phone wasn’t in use. I decided to RMA the defective device to Google in exchange for a replacement. After several weeks of waiting, I finally got my hands on my Rev. 11 Google Nexus 4 (original was Rev. 10) and prepared to transfer over to the new phone. I opted to use a standard nandroid backup of the original device’s content in order to transfer everything to the new device (essentially duplicating the content). Unfortunately, I did not pay attention to the recommended process of transferring Google Wallet to this new device, which suggests reseting the original device’s Wallet application prior to the transition. This is necessary so that the Secure Element created on the device by Google Wallet isn’t accidentally transferred to the new device. This secure element can only be accessed by a SINGLE instance of Google Wallet, so if it is transferred to a new phone or even restored to a new ROM on the same device, it can result in Wallet completely losing functionality. Because I failed to reset the Google Wallet app, which removes the secure element, prior to performing the nandroid backup, I inadvertently transferred the secure element and the linked Google Wallet app to the new phone. Unfortunately, this resulted in the breaking of Google Wallet on my RMA Nexus 4 device.

I recently started looking for an Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” ROM for my HTC Inspire (Desire HD) after using CyanogenMod for quite some time. The last nightly CM7 build for Ace was back in November and they’re still working hard at getting CM9 up an running. While perusing the XDA Forums for some alternatives to CM7, I ran across an awesome Desire HD build called aospX by Existz. After a quick backup and swap to the recommended radio, I flashed the new ICS-based ROM and was quite pleasantly surprised by the improvements in the latest iteration of the Android operating system (4.0.3 in this case). Aside from feeling considerably more responsive, this ICS build really seems to fix a lot of issues that afflicted the older Gingerbread ROMs I’ve used in the past. The built-in data tracking system and seemingly longer battery life are huge factors for me. The ability to launch a camera from the lock screen is incredibly convenient and the new-and-improved Google apps and widgets are orders of magnitude better than their predecessors.